Q: Hey Joe, how are you doing today?
A: hey Koen I’m fantastic, thanks!
Q: We all know you from your former band, July For Kings. How is the experience of being ‘solo’?
A: The biggest difference has been the loss of name recognition. The music sounds a little different but the routine is the same. We do shows, we promote online, we rehearse. But in a lot of ways it was like starting all over again, especially on a local level where people were like “who the hell is Joe Hedges”? Some venues refused to list Joe Hedges on the marquee, opting for the more recognizable July For Kings.
Q: You recently released your solo debut Curvature, which is a great album for those who haven’t heard it yet. Can you tell us a little bit about the process of how the album took shape?
A: Basically, I started writing all these songs that did not sound like JFK songs. I had been writing all kinds of crazy stuff for a year or two, off and on, and just making demos for my friends to listen to with no other plans. Serendipitously, I reconnected with Blumpy an old friend and producer who had a little freetime and was interested in doing an album with me. He wanted to do something really different, not straightforward rock. So I started sending him songs that I thought he would be interested in, and it went from there. We picked through the material and I wrote and wrote more stuff until we had a body of songs that we felt were cohesive and interesting. Then, we met in a little forest town in Michigan for a winter and recorded the whole thing in a lake-side cabin.
Q: The music on Curvature is quite different from the music on the July For Kings (& SWIM) records. Was this a deliberate choice, or did it just turn out that way?
A: It was quite deliberate. Honestly I was really bored with what I was doing. I connected with Blumpy at the perfect time, and we had a common vision of the kind of album we wanted to make.
Q: Not long ago, you confirmed the rumors that July For Kings will be reuniting and will be releasing a new full-length album. Any more developments in that department?
A: We are currently working on pre-production and sketching out the songs we want to record. We’ve also assembled a make-shift studio in my basement.
Q: When July For Kings reunites, will you still be playing shows as Joe Hedges as well, or will the focus be back on July For Kings?
A: We will do some shows as Joe Hedges and some shows as July For Kings. Curvature has only been out for six months; I think there is still a lot of life in it and I hope to continue promoting it and playing it out. I think this is going to help both entities. It’s the easiest way to fully differentiate between them. This way, we can do shows that really focus on the JFK catalog and shows that really focus on Curvature. I think the sets will flow a lot better and the fans will be happier to hear exactly what they come out to hear.
Q: Not everyone might know this, but you are also a graphic artist. Can you tell us a little bit about that aspect of your life?
A: Basically, I sit behind a computer at my house for a few hours here and there and make things look appealing for people. My clients are usually bands, managers, and the occasional winery or bakery or something on-music. I kind of fell into this after learning some basic HTML and photoshop skills to promote my own music. For me as a creative person, it’s good to do a lot of different creative things. Visual arts and music interconnect at different levels.
Q: Okay, lets talk music again. Who would you consider your most prominent influences, when it comes to your sound and songwriting?
A: I try and keep my music as eclectic as possible. I am influenced by everything I hear, whether I like it or not. Starting at the top of my recently played list in iTunes: Tori Amos, Penguin Cafe Orchestra, Peter Gabriel, Frank Sinatra, Sponge, Smashing Pumpkins, Patty Griffin, Village People of Peru, R.E.M., The Byrds, Muse, Jay-Z, Stone Temple Pilots, Elton John, Kings of Leon, Mates of State… I could keep going. I love all kinds of music and artists and i’m always getting new music.
Q: Where does your inspiration come from when writing songs?
A: Mostly from women, my friends, and from nature. Although recently I wrote a song about man-eating tigers. I think there is something about a woman that is inspiring on a spiritual level. This may be because I was raised in a house with my mom and three sisters.
Q: What if you are approached by a magazine who are releasing a special CD with cover songs on it, and they want you to contribute. What song woul you like to cover?
A: Invisible Touch by Genesis
Q: If you could pick only one band/artist/musician to tour with, who would it be?
A: I really think Peter Gabriel would be a good fit for the Curvature record. For a July For Kings set, I would have to go with somebody more straightforward like U2 or Pearl Jam.
Q: What are your thoughts on internet promotion, what are the advantages and disadvantages?
A: That’s a big question. Basically, I think the internet used to be really fantastic and great, now I’m not so sure. Early on in my career, it was a big reason we were able to build and maintain a fanbase. I attribute a lot of our success to it. I think bands are still doing this, but there are also downsides. Everyone has a myspace page and a website. On one hand, the internet is a good leveling mechanism because every artist has an equal opportunity to set up myspace page and put some music up and see what happens. On the other hand, the main beneficiaries of the hard work of musicians everywhere are the corporate owners and advertisers on myspace.com and youtube.com. None of their revenue is passed along to the creative people who own the copyrights. This is hurting artists who take their music seriously and cannot funnel traffic to their own websites (where they maintain complete control and can chose whether or not to sell ad space). Additionally, I think the fact that there are so many spammers, pages that are poorly maintained or hard to navigate, pages with poor musical content, etcetera is just making the internet uncomfortably crowded and uninspiring for would-be fans and serious artists.
Q: In your opinion, what is the best song ever, and what is the worst song ever?
A: God Only Knows by the Beach Boys is definitely one of the best. She’s Always a Woman by Billy Joel is another good one. It’s harder to keep up with the worst song ever. It is amazing to me some of the stuff that sells.
Q: What websites can we visit for more information on Joe Hedges?
A: joehedges.com, myspace.com/joehedges, youtube.com/joehedgesmusic, sonicbids.com/joehedgesmusic
Q: Okay a few random questions now.
Q: Day or night?
A: Night
Q: Club venue or arena venue?
A: Club
Q: CDs or digital music?
A: CDs
Q: Okay, final question. What are your thoughts on people downloading music, both legally & illegally?
A: Downloading music is great. When the internet first began to grow in popularity I thought even illegal downloading was fine. I expected the market to naturally adapt and come up with viable alternatives.
Unfortunately, that never really happened until recently with iTunes and iPods. But now in a lot of ways it’s too late. I think all the blame lies with the music industry for not being inventive and proactive about it. Instead of doing nothing for years, then sueing college kids as a scare tactic, they should have been coming up with innovative, technological solutions and making great records.
Ultimately it was Apple, a computer company, who began to harness the power of the internet and make music cool again. But the damage was done – people do not buy music anymore. They burn CD’s, download for free, etc. At this point, I think a good place to begin fixing this would be to change the intellectual property laws, which were created for fixed media containers like records. An mp3 can be replicated like a living organism an infinite amount of times. So the value needs to be placed more on the TRANSMISSION of the product, not the product itself, since an mp3 can never really exist in physical space.
When lawmakers begin to see this and change laws accordingly, hopefully a shift will happen which will put more money back into the hands of music makers and take it from corporate internet gatekeepers and toll collectors like myspace and youtube. I’m not worried. Balance is inevitable. It’s the Tao.
Thanks Joe, it’s been a pleasure talking to you.
A: hey Koen I’m fantastic, thanks!
Q: We all know you from your former band, July For Kings. How is the experience of being ‘solo’?
A: The biggest difference has been the loss of name recognition. The music sounds a little different but the routine is the same. We do shows, we promote online, we rehearse. But in a lot of ways it was like starting all over again, especially on a local level where people were like “who the hell is Joe Hedges”? Some venues refused to list Joe Hedges on the marquee, opting for the more recognizable July For Kings.
Q: You recently released your solo debut Curvature, which is a great album for those who haven’t heard it yet. Can you tell us a little bit about the process of how the album took shape?
A: Basically, I started writing all these songs that did not sound like JFK songs. I had been writing all kinds of crazy stuff for a year or two, off and on, and just making demos for my friends to listen to with no other plans. Serendipitously, I reconnected with Blumpy an old friend and producer who had a little freetime and was interested in doing an album with me. He wanted to do something really different, not straightforward rock. So I started sending him songs that I thought he would be interested in, and it went from there. We picked through the material and I wrote and wrote more stuff until we had a body of songs that we felt were cohesive and interesting. Then, we met in a little forest town in Michigan for a winter and recorded the whole thing in a lake-side cabin.
Q: The music on Curvature is quite different from the music on the July For Kings (& SWIM) records. Was this a deliberate choice, or did it just turn out that way?
A: It was quite deliberate. Honestly I was really bored with what I was doing. I connected with Blumpy at the perfect time, and we had a common vision of the kind of album we wanted to make.
Q: Not long ago, you confirmed the rumors that July For Kings will be reuniting and will be releasing a new full-length album. Any more developments in that department?
A: We are currently working on pre-production and sketching out the songs we want to record. We’ve also assembled a make-shift studio in my basement.
Q: When July For Kings reunites, will you still be playing shows as Joe Hedges as well, or will the focus be back on July For Kings?
A: We will do some shows as Joe Hedges and some shows as July For Kings. Curvature has only been out for six months; I think there is still a lot of life in it and I hope to continue promoting it and playing it out. I think this is going to help both entities. It’s the easiest way to fully differentiate between them. This way, we can do shows that really focus on the JFK catalog and shows that really focus on Curvature. I think the sets will flow a lot better and the fans will be happier to hear exactly what they come out to hear.
Q: Not everyone might know this, but you are also a graphic artist. Can you tell us a little bit about that aspect of your life?
A: Basically, I sit behind a computer at my house for a few hours here and there and make things look appealing for people. My clients are usually bands, managers, and the occasional winery or bakery or something on-music. I kind of fell into this after learning some basic HTML and photoshop skills to promote my own music. For me as a creative person, it’s good to do a lot of different creative things. Visual arts and music interconnect at different levels.
Q: Okay, lets talk music again. Who would you consider your most prominent influences, when it comes to your sound and songwriting?
A: I try and keep my music as eclectic as possible. I am influenced by everything I hear, whether I like it or not. Starting at the top of my recently played list in iTunes: Tori Amos, Penguin Cafe Orchestra, Peter Gabriel, Frank Sinatra, Sponge, Smashing Pumpkins, Patty Griffin, Village People of Peru, R.E.M., The Byrds, Muse, Jay-Z, Stone Temple Pilots, Elton John, Kings of Leon, Mates of State… I could keep going. I love all kinds of music and artists and i’m always getting new music.
Q: Where does your inspiration come from when writing songs?
A: Mostly from women, my friends, and from nature. Although recently I wrote a song about man-eating tigers. I think there is something about a woman that is inspiring on a spiritual level. This may be because I was raised in a house with my mom and three sisters.
Q: What if you are approached by a magazine who are releasing a special CD with cover songs on it, and they want you to contribute. What song woul you like to cover?
A: Invisible Touch by Genesis
Q: If you could pick only one band/artist/musician to tour with, who would it be?
A: I really think Peter Gabriel would be a good fit for the Curvature record. For a July For Kings set, I would have to go with somebody more straightforward like U2 or Pearl Jam.
Q: What are your thoughts on internet promotion, what are the advantages and disadvantages?
A: That’s a big question. Basically, I think the internet used to be really fantastic and great, now I’m not so sure. Early on in my career, it was a big reason we were able to build and maintain a fanbase. I attribute a lot of our success to it. I think bands are still doing this, but there are also downsides. Everyone has a myspace page and a website. On one hand, the internet is a good leveling mechanism because every artist has an equal opportunity to set up myspace page and put some music up and see what happens. On the other hand, the main beneficiaries of the hard work of musicians everywhere are the corporate owners and advertisers on myspace.com and youtube.com. None of their revenue is passed along to the creative people who own the copyrights. This is hurting artists who take their music seriously and cannot funnel traffic to their own websites (where they maintain complete control and can chose whether or not to sell ad space). Additionally, I think the fact that there are so many spammers, pages that are poorly maintained or hard to navigate, pages with poor musical content, etcetera is just making the internet uncomfortably crowded and uninspiring for would-be fans and serious artists.
Q: In your opinion, what is the best song ever, and what is the worst song ever?
A: God Only Knows by the Beach Boys is definitely one of the best. She’s Always a Woman by Billy Joel is another good one. It’s harder to keep up with the worst song ever. It is amazing to me some of the stuff that sells.
Q: What websites can we visit for more information on Joe Hedges?
A: joehedges.com, myspace.com/joehedges, youtube.com/joehedgesmusic, sonicbids.com/joehedgesmusic
Q: Okay a few random questions now.
Q: Day or night?
A: Night
Q: Club venue or arena venue?
A: Club
Q: CDs or digital music?
A: CDs
Q: Okay, final question. What are your thoughts on people downloading music, both legally & illegally?
A: Downloading music is great. When the internet first began to grow in popularity I thought even illegal downloading was fine. I expected the market to naturally adapt and come up with viable alternatives.
Unfortunately, that never really happened until recently with iTunes and iPods. But now in a lot of ways it’s too late. I think all the blame lies with the music industry for not being inventive and proactive about it. Instead of doing nothing for years, then sueing college kids as a scare tactic, they should have been coming up with innovative, technological solutions and making great records.
Ultimately it was Apple, a computer company, who began to harness the power of the internet and make music cool again. But the damage was done – people do not buy music anymore. They burn CD’s, download for free, etc. At this point, I think a good place to begin fixing this would be to change the intellectual property laws, which were created for fixed media containers like records. An mp3 can be replicated like a living organism an infinite amount of times. So the value needs to be placed more on the TRANSMISSION of the product, not the product itself, since an mp3 can never really exist in physical space.
When lawmakers begin to see this and change laws accordingly, hopefully a shift will happen which will put more money back into the hands of music makers and take it from corporate internet gatekeepers and toll collectors like myspace and youtube. I’m not worried. Balance is inevitable. It’s the Tao.
Thanks Joe, it’s been a pleasure talking to you.